If you care about ethical storytelling in mental health, this conversation gets right to the heart of it: how do you share lived experience in a way that informs others without forcing storytellers to relive the hardest parts again and again?
Kristy Wolfe is joined by Katelyn Greer, a lived experience leader whose work spans Kickstand, peer support, youth engagement, and research. Together they revisit the digital story Katelyn created about child abuse, foster care, suicidality, and survival—and why the digital storytelling process felt different from a live interview or repeated public retelling.
They talk about what a group workshop can make possible, why feedback helps sharpen the real message of a story, and how digital stories can become powerful tools for staff education, training modules, advocacy, and systems change.
You’ll also hear a thoughtful discussion about what audiences miss when they default to “resilience,” why storyteller wellbeing and consent matter, and how lived experience leadership is reshaping research and youth-serving systems.
In this episode:
- Why digital storytelling can reduce re-traumatization
- What made creating a story in community feel supportive
- How Katelyn’s story has been used in mental health and training contexts
- Why “resilience” can sometimes distract from accountability
- How lived experience is shaping peer support and research
- Why there are many paths into leadership, advocacy, and academia
A grounded, generous conversation for facilitators, researchers, nonprofits, caregivers, and anyone using digital stories with care.
Other Links Mentioned
About Our Guest
Katelyn Greer is a lived-experience leader and researcher whose work in child and youth mental health is deeply informed by her own experiences of child abuse and neglect, childhood adversity, and involvement with the foster care system. Much of her work has grown from a desire to transform deeply difficult experiences into something meaningful, using what she has lived through to help create better experiences, systems, and opportunities for young people today. She leads peer support implementation for Kickstand, Alberta’s Integrated Youth Services Hubs, and also works in youth engagement and research at the University of Calgary. Her work focuses on child maltreatment, trauma, peer support, and meaningful youth engagement, with a particular interest in creating safer, more ethical ways for young people to participate in research, storytelling, and the systems that affect their lives. She is especially interested in how lived experience can be shared in ways that are powerful and meaningful while protecting the dignity, agency, and wellbeing of the person sharing their story.
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